“My two fingers on a typewriter have never connected with my brain. My hand on a pen does. A fountain pen, of course. Ball-point pens are only good for filling out forms on a plane.” – Graham Greene
Nothing could have been better to start this article with. These words resonate with me as I type it all on my laptop.
While growing up I was inspired by my dad’s handwriting. It had something to it that always captured my attention. His old notebooks were written in with fountain pen and it fascinated me a lot.
All of us eagerly waited to finish fifth standard because that would give us the opportunity to write with pens in school, and not just any other pen, fountain pen.
The day we got our first fountain pen to write, it gave us a sense of responsibility, because now we had something to take care of.
Yeah, one cannot just buy a fountain pen and then forget about it. The thing with fountain pens is that if you treat them well, they treat you well too.
I used to love keeping a track of the ink content in my pens. It became a daily ritual for most of us to fill ink in our pens before going to bed. And the day we forgot this, we were left with no pens to write. Ball pens were not allowed and classmates were surely hesitant to share their precious fountain pens ’cause they are something very close to our hearts.
There were times when the ink wouldn’t reach the nib, and there were also those when too much ink would stain our index fingers.
It was a beautiful feeling to imagine how each drop of liquid ink formed those letters in my notebook, like a painting. I still remember shaking the pen to use even that last drop of ink.
And how can one forget the joy of spilling ink on our friend’s notebooks?
Isn’t is wonderful to think that how so much can be associated with a pen? The nibs, feeds, droppers to fill ink, ink bottles, and those life-saving ink rubbers. My curious mind would always try to find out its working mechanism.
Each of its parts had their own significance and if one went wrong, the pen wouldn’t work perfectly.
“None of us can have as many virtues as the fountain pen, or half its cussedness; but we can try.” – Mark Twain
For a particular generation, fountain pens are just like those angels who could make everything perfect. They have the power to make even the worst of handwriting look good.
Ball pens, gel pens and all were good, but it were fountain pens that made us feel like artists with those amazing calligraphy writings.
No other pen in this world can replace their unique craftsmanship and flair. Writing with fountain pens was indeed a pleasure.
